Long Unpublished
by Pyrex Shards
Summary: But it's a work of fiction, isn't it? Helga? Weren't you the one to tell me that a true writer has to bleed on their paper? --Second and final chapter added.--
1. Chapter 1

Long Unpublished

a Hey Arnold fanfic by Pyrex Shards

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"Hello Helga!"

"Hey Phoebs."

"How are you today?"

"Same old same old. You?"

"I'm doing good. When was the last time you saw the sun?"

"Last week sometime. I have a respectable moon tan. Why?"

"Goodness! We need to get you out of your apartment. What do you say to Japanese noodles, eleven o'clock at Fuji's?"

"You paying?"

"Of course!"

"I'll be there. Bye Phoebe."

"Bye Helga." A slender hand returned the cordless phone to its place on the counter top.

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Two friends, as close as sisters, sat facing each other at a small table in the front of Fuji's restaurant. It was a small place; a literal hole-in-the-wall. On the sign outside there was a stylized representation of Mt. Fuji behind the Japanese styled brush script making out the name of the establishment. It was one of Hillwood's little secrets tucked away in one of its more artsy districts along "cherry street."

It was also a pricey noodle place, but Phoebe knew the owners, and could get discounts for herself and her friends by merely showing up. She sat, eating her noodles like a pro, while Helga slowly tortured a single noodle with her chopsticks. She pinched it apart into equal segments and counted to about ten smaller noodles until Phoebe spoke up. "Gerald's got a promotion yesterday. We're thinking about moving uptown, to Hillwood Estates."

Helga looked up and allowed Phoebe a genuine smile. "That's great news Phoebs. I'm proud of you both."

Phoebe beamed. "Why thank you! That's very kind. But..." Phoebe shook her head. "We won't be able to hang out at lunch like this anymore."

Helga blew a strand of blonde hair out of her face and idly brushed it back into her unruly bangs. "Don't say that Phoebe. We'll spend time together. I do have a car you know." Once she was certain she had her short hair somewhat presentable she returned her attention to another half mutilated noodle.

"Well, we can pick you up sometimes." Phoebe spoke meekly, concern in her voice, then looked her friend in the eyes. "Can you really trust that thing up those hills." She idly gestured outside at the old brown Cadillac sitting across the street.

Helga merely smiled. "It may have a lot of miles to it, but that 'ol Cadillac has a lot of spirit left."

"But you've seen the way it smokes when you hit the gas and the way it diesels when you cut the engine."

"It just needs new rings, and a gasket, spark plugs, and a..." Helga shook her head. "Look, Phoebs. I appreciate your concern, but that's my problem, alright? Don't worry about it. I'll manage."

"Whatever you say, Helga."

"So. Did Gerald get any word on my latest draft?"

Phoebe's expression turned into a consoling frown, as she pouted. "I'm sorry Helga. Gerald said that they rejected..."

Helga groaned in frustration and stabbed her hapless noodles with her chopsticks, she averted her gaze from Phoebe and stared at the street outside, at her brown rusted Cadillac sitting across the street, with its balding tires and its missing front bumper. It was quite literally the only thing she could afford.

"I'm sorry Helga. There is some good news. You're going to like it, a little."

"Huh?" Helga turned to Phoebe, and the Asian woman reached down to her purse. She withdrew a small envelope and handed it to Helga.

Helga took the plain envelope and opened it. She unfolded the paper inside.

"They were going to send this to you, but Gerald and I felt we owed you an explanation, before you got the wrong idea."

"This... This is an offer letter. But I don't understand," Helga looked up at Phoebe. " You said they rejected my draft."

"They did. This is for the other draft."

"Other draft?" Helga arched an eyebrow at her Japanese friend, and then when realization hit, she closed her eyes and shook her head. She calmly sat her hands down on the table for fear of what she would do with them to the table or other items if she kept them up. "You didn't..."

Phoebe was quick to reach out her hand and brush Helga's. "Gerald and I want what's best for you, and if you're too afraid to admit that you are sitting on a solid piece of work that could make you rich, well, we had to push."

"You had no right."

"Helga."

"To take my childhood."

"Helga."

"And turn it in to those corporate heathens. Do you know what they'll do with it?"

"Listen to me for one second."

Helga folded her arms and stared across the bowl of noodles. She could never recall being as mad at her own adoptive sister more than right now.

Once Phoebe was satisfied she had Helga's full attention, she stirred the noodles in her bowl. "Gerald says that they were so impressed by it that they want to see more. I only gave them the first chapter. He says this is huge, not quite on the level of Harry Potter as far as sales, but you will be making some serious money. You won't have to work at Big Al's anymore. You can devote all your time to writing."

"This isn't something I can just release to the hounds. That's my life story in those chapters. There's some very personal stuff in there."

"But it's a work of fiction, isn't it? And weren't you the one to tell me that a true writer has to bleed on their paper?"

"Not for vampires, and certainly not for Wellington Lloyd Publishing."

"Please, Helga, consider this. You know we're right. We both love you. Your practically my sister. And besides, you could get a new car? I know you've had a rough life, but this is your chance to stick it to the world."

"I just want the world to work with me Phoebe. How come none of my other drafts worked out? Why do they want my own sob story instead?"

"I can't tell you that." Phoebe stood up, withdrew a small amount of bills from her purse, and placed them on the table. "But I can tell you this much. If you don't do this for anyone else, then do it for Arnold. He'd want to see you happy. Goodbye Helga. Gerald is awaiting your decision. You have his number."

Helga didn't frown, nor did she smile. As Phoebe bid her goodbye and walked out of the restaurant, Helga stared intently at her untouched bowl of noodles, then at her mid-eighties rust bucket parked outside, then to the offer letter, sitting on the table, one third of its fold swaying slightly from the breeze of a nearby air conditioning vent. Swallowing once for courage, she made her decision...

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"Where's the title?"

"It's unfinished."

"Well, these things have to have a title, right?"

"Criminey! I said it's unfinished."

"That's the name of your imaginary friend?"

"Yeah."

"Well, there's your title."

The nine year old, Helga, with her trademark Unibrow, and her unadorned blonde hair cascading down her back, smiled at her best-friends persistence as the petite Japanese girl fingered a piece of dialogue on the paper. Phoebe had a point. She looked at the top of the page, and with number two pencil in her small hand, set about writing the title, mouthing the two words as she went.

"Hey... Arnold!..."

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Authors Notes:

This came to me while my clothing was spinning in the washing machines at the laundromat. Not that it is that important, but we get inspiration in the strangest of places.

Feedback is much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I know this story was marked as complete, but I lied.

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"_Hey... Arnold!_... I like that. Thanks Phoebs."

Phoebe grinned across the lunchroom table at her best friend, Helga F. Pataki. The blonde looked up, met Phoebe's eyes, and smiled in return. The rain outside had confined them to this table for the remainder of lunch, but it didn't matter to Helga. The rainy days had their significance, she knew.

She sat the pencil down on top of the paper, and reached for her chocolate milk. Lifting it off the table, she took a long sip through the bendy straw. It was exciting, she had the title now, courtesy of Phoebe! Now if she could only make this feeling, this blissful feeling, last through lunch, and the rest of the school day. But it was not to last, for as she sat the chocolate milk down and looked at the painfully institutional clock on the wall, the bell rang.

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Her life changed on that first day of preschool. Her sister had made her a lunch. Helga remembered watching her sister humming a song to herself while packing the sandwich, the carrot chips, apple slices, and box of ecto-cooler kool-aid. Her sister had lifted her up and sat her on the counter top and talked to the little girl the entire time, gushing about how she was so proud of Helga starting preschool.

"It's a big step baby sister! Soon you'll be making lots of new friends. This is so exciting!" Olga had dropped the last of the carrot chips into the little plastic bag. She smiled and reached over to Helga, pinching her cheek and causing the little girl to giggle. Olga was dressed in her recital dress, for she had a piano recital that day. Helga wished she could see it.

Or she did wish at the time. It was one of the last days she really felt any sort of kinship with her sister. Then their parents called Olga into the fledgling trophy room where they had a Piano set up in one corner. Olga lifted the little girl from the counter top and let her down to the floor, ignoring Helga's sighs of protest.

Her big sister leaned down to her knees and looked at Helga, who returned the stare with disappointment at Olga's abrupt departure. Olga ceased that disappointment with an abrupt index finger on Helga's nose, causing the little girl to giggle once more, and throw her arms around Olga. Her big sister returned the hug, saying "you're going to do great things, I just know it."

Olga released Helga from her embrace, and handed her the lunch box.

"Olgaaa!" Miriam yelled from the trophy room and Olga shook her head with a smile, winking at Helga.

"Coming mummy!" She sang back and walked towards the hallway.

Helga's parents were too enthralled with the notes that Olga played on the small piano, and Olga herself seemed intoxicated by the attention they paid to her, to hear her reminding them of her first school day. Big Bob felt the tug on his pants leg as Helga looked up at him.

"I need a ride to preschool."

But her father returned only non-committal words and resumed listening to Olga's private performance. Helga made the decision to walk by herself...

A dog stole the lunch, and the box. If only her father hadn't neglected his duties to his youngest daughter, she wouldn't have had to get mud splashed on her new clothes from the car that sped past on the intersection in front of the school. She had entered the glass doors soaking wet, and walked into the main room of urban tots. Upon seeing her, those tots laughed.

They pointed at her bow with mocking stares, and whispered amongst themselves.

They continued to laugh as one of the teachers came by and took pity upon her, wiping her off with a fluffy blue towel and saying things like "You poor dear. What happened to you?" She had seen Harold Berman laughing at her, mocking her, he was close enough that she knew he could hear. She shook her head sadly at the teacher.

So she did what she could. She simply ignored them, and played finger-paints on the easel by herself, painting a pink sun and blue mountains.

She ditched her bow in the trashcan, and never wore her pigtails again.

Now in the fourth grade, Helga walked back into her homeroom, while Miss Slovack sat at her desk tapping her pencil much too loudly, waiting for the students to return. Helga walked the distance between the front of the class and her desk along the back row, ignoring the children who were not her friends, which was the entire class, except for one girl. Phoebe.

She sat in the back row by Phoebe to her right. Helga had the far corner desk. She liked it that way, she turned to her left, and made sure Arnold was there. He looked back at her as he always did, and smiled. She was safe in this corner, with her two best friends.

Phoebe had her game face on, once class would start, the Asian girl would be all business until the final bell. Arnold on the other hand was only there for her, and she knew it. He first appeared to her in a dream after she had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room the night after her first day at preschool, while her father watched a football game.

She was alone in the rain at night, running for block after block, though she didn't know why.

Dogs with red eyes were chasing her, and cars made of mud blocked the intersections. She ran around a corner, and there he was. He unfurled his umbrella and the dogs scampered away, and the mud cars melted. The rain stopped. She looked up at him, and then stood. He was her height. He had blond hair like hers, though it cowlicked on top of his head like fields of yellow corn. A small baseball cap sat atop his head that was, oddly enough, shaped like a football, and...

He looked at the top of her head. "I like your bow."

Helga realized she had the bow on, the one on its way to the city dump.

As the sound of her father's movements caused her to stir, she heard the announcer on TV say the name "Arnold" just as her father turned it off. She smiled.

On days like this she imagined she still had her pink bow, and that Arnold was the only one who could see it. She pretended to be paying attention in class, though she stole glances in the direction of the windows, and imagined Arnold there, paying attention to Miss. Slovack.

Miss. Slovack never called Arnold's name when taking row... Helga liked it that way.

She opened the spiral notebook that had accompanied her to lunch, and picked up the pencil from its holder atop her desk. Slovack droned on about long division as the world Helga was creating opened with the notebook. Fifteen pages into the notebook, and within its pages, Arnold was looking with pity upon a poor mistreated old turtle named Lock Jaw at the city aquarium. Helga set to work, letting the scene surrounding Arnold flow out of her fingers and onto the paper along with the graphite. She carefully crafted scene after scene.

Arnold had made the decision, or finally did at the insistence of his grandmother, to free the turtle, when Miss Slovack spoke up. "I certainly hope you're paying attention enough to turn in an A paper Miss Pataki." Helga looked up at her teacher standing in front of her desk and looking down upon her, frowning while audibly tapping her high heel. The class smirked as Helga closed the notebook and quickly deposited it in her desk. "Good." Slovack said, satisfied. She turned around and waltzed to the front of the class. "Now class, who wants to come up and answer a few practice questions on the board." Hands shot up, all except Helga, and Phoebe, who reached over and put a hand on the blonde's shoulder. Inwardly she imagined Arnold doing the same.

The story of Arnold saving the old turtle would be paused until she could get home and close herself up in her room.

The rest of the day wore on until the final bell, when all the class rushed the door, save for Helga, and Phoebe. Arnold bid Helga his silent goodbye as he walked out the class, and Helga smiled at the shadow amongst the children.

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Arnold saving the old turtle, a story tentatively titled "Lock Jaw" finished quite nicely, Helga mused, as she added the final sentences to a scene in which Arnold and his grandmother watched Lock Jaw waddle away into the sunrise while they stood on a pier. She closed the spiral bound notebook and looked over at the clock beside her bed to confirm that she still had at least a little time before lights out.

Helga kicked her legs over to the side of the bed and stood up shakily, wobbling slightly on one leg because it had fallen asleep during the time she sat cross legged on her bed putting the finishing touches to another adventure in her new story series. As she walked around a bit to get rid of the needling sensation in her foot, she thought once more about the title, "Hey Arnold!" given to her by Phoebe.

She stopped walking and looked at herself in the mirror on the wall. She imagined Arnold standing there beside her reflection, and asked. "What do you think about that title football head?"

The imaginary reflection simply smiled, and with half lidded eyes gave her a thumbs up. She looked at the spiral notebook in her hands. "Hey Arnold! it is then." She approached her unadorned closet door and reached for the knob, opening it to reveal a myriad of pink and purple clothing. She reached in and pushed the clothing aside, to reveal a simple shelf upon which rested an impressive collection of books.

She reached forward and deposited the notebook on the shelf, then ran a finger across the other notebooks there, before grabbing one with a blue cover and pulling it out of the shelf. Helga quietly closed her closet door and walked back towards the bed, plopping down on the pink sheets and falling on her back while flipping open the notebook, letting her feet hang over the side of the bed. She sighed. "If I could only figure out how to start this one." It was only the first page, and on that first page one single paragraph. It started out simply enough, with Arnold walking out of Sunset Arms, and almost being bowled over by the buildings feline, canine, and swine inhabitants.

It had potential, she knew, and she sighed at the thought. It had so much potential that it hurt her to realize she couldn't continue these stories for long. She let the notebook lay across her chest as she closed her eyes. These stories were her escape, within them her imaginary friend, Arnold, found life. Only recently had she put herself in the stories. But as Helga Francesca Pataki wrote herself into the story as her alter self, Helga Geraldine Pataki, something incredible happened.

She became a bully to Arnold. A bully with a pink ribbon in her hair, the one that in reality lay in the Hillwood landfill, tying up her hair into two pigtails that hadn't rested atop Helga's hair since that first day of preschool. The meager closet in Helga's room became a huge walk-in with a shrine to Arnold. Her favorite term for Arnold, Football Head, became cringe worthy when she wrote it into Helga G. Pataki's dialogue.

The Helga Pataki within the pages of her stories was nothing like the real life Helga F. Pataki, and the girl didn't know what to do about it.

Sometime during the silent musing about what to do with her alternate self, to write her out of existence, or let her continue torturing Arnold and Herself, to see what would happen, Helga's eyes fluttered closed, and she dreamed.

She dreamt of herself not as Helga Francesca, but as Helga Geraldine, with Arnold as her secret crush. She experienced the times she shoved him in the hallway. Inwardly she winced at how she was treating her best imaginary friend in the whole world. But slowly, the dreams solidified into something more. As Helga G. Pataki slowly opened up to Arnold, and to Helga herself.

Helga woke up with that notebook still across her chest as she had rested it there, but she continued to dream as she opened the notebook and started writing again. She let her frustrations out into the paper, her life as it was played out by her alternate, as the imaginary Helga slowly worked through her feelings for Arnold.

She wrote in class and on the bus. At home and at the mall in the food-court. She wrote those dreams into stories. Arnold was always there beside her. In the stories he played along with her alter ego, letting her let the bully with the pink ribbon evolve and grow, until Arnold himself simply stood back and became a supporting character, no longer the focus. But he stayed with her through thick and thin...

Trial and tribulation...

Arnold never left Helga F. Pataki's side even as she walked in line at her graduation ceremony after barely passing through High School, imaging his arm looped around hers, or when the colleges rejected her because her grades were not good enough. She imagined his soothing hand on her shoulder whenever her boss reprimanded her for messing up another order at Big Al's; a job she had worked since that final rejection letter from Hillwood Technical University.

As Helga awoke to the sound of her alarm clock and looked about her apartment, her sheets in a tangled mess after a fitful night, she brought her hand up to her forehead and sighed, massaging away a raging headache from a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting beside her bed.

She had made her decision the day before, in that noodle restaurant, but it scared her senseless. Because she needed the money, and was about to sell her soul to Wellington Lloyd. Somewhere along the way she had come home to her small efficiency apartment, mad at herself, and started asking rather loudly for Arnold to show himself, hell even for Helga, that damned alternate version of her, to make an appearance.

She hadn't seen them in years, not since that day a few years ago when she had finished that long unpublished draft started in the fourth grade. She cried that day, because she knew she would never have Arnold with her ever again. In her story he had gone away, to San Lorenzo to find his parents, and Helga G. Pataki was devastated.

Helga F. was even worse off. Her Imagination died when Arnold went away. Her words on paper were flat, and she knew it.

Yes, it was a sad ending. And it came flooding back to her last night. It seemed only fitting to Helga, for her real life was just like that, a sad ending. She was sitting on her couch nursing a bottle of Jack, letting it burn all the way down, and getting lost in the effects of the alcohol. She toasted the air as tears streamed down her cheeks.

She had stumbled to her bedroom but hadn't quite made it, and sat there against the door, head back against the wall and legs sprawled out, bottle sitting beside her, crying for her muses. As the night rolled on and she sat there, and the only light entering her apartment came from the horrendous sodium lamp outside, she continued dreaming.

Somewhere beyond the alcohol Arnold and Helga approached her from the shadows and leaned down. Both had contented smiles on their faces, they were holding hands. When had Arnold come back from San Lorenzo? They both looked in their twenties. They had rings on their fingers.

Helga let out a whimper at the sight as she imagined Arnold reaching out and brushing an unruly lock of hair from her eyes while Helga put a hand on her shoulder. She smiled as the memories of all the stories past had come flooding back into the forefront as her two imaginary friends said in unison. "It's okay to imagine Helga. We're here for you."

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"Talk to me." The smooth masculine voice answered.

"Hi Geraldo."

"Hiya Helga! How's our favorite author doing this morning?"

"I'm fine I guess. I have a bit of a headache. Listen, um, about that chapter that you submitted."

"Yes? Have you made a decision on letting the world read '_Hey Arnold!_'?"

"Well. I thought about it."

A pause over the phone... Then through the hangover she could hear the anticipation on Gerald's voice. "And?"

"When can I sign?"

_End_

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Author's Notes

This was an experimental piece of fanfiction on my part. It started as a "raise it up on a flagpole and see who salutes it" sort of experiment into a blend of alternate universe and flashback/forward. It will remain two chapters because I don't put too much weight on alternate universe stories. They can go sour fast. I assure you I have no intention of continuing further. There's literally nothing else to do because it has come full circle.

Extra thanks to Kilajaray, Lord Malachite, Pointy Objects, Acosta Romero, Hellerick Ferlibay, and Jae B. for reviewing chapter 1 and giving me some very interesting reviews. I appreciate it. This chapter was for you guys.

Please review and don't be afraid to give me your honest opinions. I'm very curious to see how this story is received.

Thanks for reading!


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